


What's a Dragon to a Cat? (It's Not Possession, it's Affection)

by thingsKTsays



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Fluff, Gen, Implied future Merlin/Arthur, Kitten, Potential Possession, no redeemable qualities
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-10
Updated: 2014-04-10
Packaged: 2018-01-18 14:33:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,461
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1432021
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thingsKTsays/pseuds/thingsKTsays
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Merlin adopts an adorable kitten. It might be possessed.</p>
<p>It's definitely evil.</p>
            </blockquote>





	What's a Dragon to a Cat? (It's Not Possession, it's Affection)

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for the Merlin Reverse Big Bang. My artist was the amazingly wonderful, unendingly patient, [Candymacaron](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Candymacaron/pseuds/Candymacaron), who I owe so many apologies to.
> 
> This would have never happened without Zoe, Katelyn, and [KimliPan](http://archiveofourown.org/users/KimliPan/pseuds/KimliPan).
> 
>  
> 
> There is a section in this story where Merlin places the kitten into extremely cold water, something the kitten is Very Much Against. There's no malicious intent, but I think the temperature of the water places it into the territory of Things You Should Not Do when it comes to pets, and I figured I would add a small warning for it.

She was probably the most adorable thing Merlin had ever seen, all soft black fur and a little pink nose, and when she mewled plaintively and rubbed the side of her face against his outstretched hand he knew he was lost.

"I won't be able to feed her. It's terrible, but we barely have the money to feed her mother. The rest of the litter didn't make it, just her." The townswoman, Mellie, was one of Merlin's favourites (she always gave him an extra honeybun when he came by her stall in the market). She looked distressed as she spoke. "I don't want to just leave her to fend for herself. Even if she somehow makes it out of infancy, you know how the guards treat barnyard strays. Please, Merlin, I need your help. She needs your help."

Merlin looked down at the kitten in her hands - she was so tiny and fluffy, with brilliant blue eyes that looked up at him sadly. From the way that she desperately nuzzled against him, purring steadily, he thought she seemed lonely. Merlin could definitely relate to that.

"Can I...?" He gestured to the kitten with his hands, hoping to pick her up. With a weak smile, Mellie placed her gently in Merlin's hands. She weighed so little! He could practically fit her in one hand. When he cradled her to his chest and stroked a finger across the crown of her head, she meowed and pushed into the pressure, encouraging him to continue. He smiled down at her, completely enamoured.

Merlin knew he wasn't leaving the Lower Town without her. He only hoped that Gaius wouldn't object to housing and feeding a kitten.

She'd be staying in his room, anyway, not the infirmary - it should be fine. Hopefully. It was too late to try and say no, anyways.

Purring contently, the kitten was quickly falling asleep in his arms.

"Of course I'll take care of you," he murmured to the kitten.

She yawned, showing off a couple of tiny little teeth. Gods, she was adorable.

Merlin never wanted to put her down.

\---

 

Sneaking her past Gaius was difficult, but not impossible. The kitten had stayed asleep for the whole journey from the market to Gaius's rooms, cuddled close to Merlin's chest and breathing evenly. Merlin knew that was only temporary, though, and once she woke up he would be hard pressed to keep her existence a secret.

He watched as she sleepily got settled on his bed, curling so that her nose was pressed against his pillow, her tail flipping slightly as if in approval of her new surroundings. There was no use putting it off. The kitten was asleep and Merlin had to figure out how to break it to Gaius that his ward had adopted a tiny, dependent, adorable, cute creature.

She really was just the cutest thing. Merlin couldn't get over how soft her fur was. He had never felt anything like it. None of the pelts Arthur brought out when the winter air came rolling in could compare, and certainly not any of the coarse clothing that Merlin had known throughout his life.

But standing by the door and staring at her with a besotted grin on his face would not make this conversation with Gaius any easier, nor would it get it done quicker. Merlin quietly left the room, closing the door softly before walking the few steps down to where Gaius was sitting at their dining table, poring over a large book.

"Merlin, did you buy the replacement scales like I asked?" 

Merlin cringed. To be honest, the second Mellie had approached him with the kitten Merlin had forgot that he had been at the market for a reason. His guilt was obvious to Gaius. "Ah. Should I even bother asking what took you so long, then? Going stall to stall looking for it, maybe?"

Gaius didn't sound like he would believe that excuse, but for a second Merlin thought about using it. It wouldn't be worth it, though, for the mere seconds it would buy him before Gaius was onto him again, like a dog on the hunt - he would track down the truth, and Merlin wasn't very good at concealing it from him.

"So I ran into Mellie..." Merlin let the words trail off. He had no idea where he was going with this. Just how did you tell someone that you brought home a living animal to care for? That would have to live in your home, since Merlin lived there too! This whole situation was not good.

"Oh, how is Mellie? Her cat gave birth to a litter last month, but last I heard only one survived, poor things. Although, having said that, Mellie and her husband can't afford to feed any more mouths, so maybe it was a blessing. I'm sure they'll be looking for a kind soul to take in the surviving kitten."

Merlin just looked at the table, drawing figures in the wood with a finger.

"Merlin! Don't tell me you let Mellie talk you into taking the kitten! You foolish boy, do you even know how to care for one? Where will it stay, what will it eat?" Gaius's voice rose steadily until he was shouting.

From up in Merlin's room, a grumpy meowing could be heard as the kitten's nap was interrupted.  
“She’ll stay in my room?” Merlin tried out a wide, innocent-looking smile. It couldn’t hurt. By Gaius’s unimpressed expression, it didn’t help any, either. With some quick thinking, a reasonable explanation came to mind. “You’re right, Gaius, I don’t know how to care for a kitten. But see, I’m a _Dragonlord_. I need to know how to properly raise creatures, or I’ll mess up with Aithusa. And I think we can both agree that an improperly trained cat is a lot less dangerous than an improperly trained dragon.”

Gaius just raised a single judgemental eyebrow.

Merlin was pretty sure that meant he had won.

“I mean really, what’s the worst she could do? It’s not like she’ll get into trouble.”

 

\---

 

The kitten (who Merlin had quickly named Freya, because she seemed sweet and wonderful and she _needed_ Merlin) was quite possibly a demon with fur. And not all that sweet.

Potentially.

Probably.

Not that Merlin minded, honestly, because Freya _was_ pretty wonderful, and still just as cute as when Mellie first let him hold her.

And it’s not like Merlin could blame Freya for acting like a bit of a monster sometimes. It wasn’t her fault that she got bored when Merlin spent _hours_ attempting to clean Arthur’s chambers. After the first time he left Freya locked in his room when he went off to be a dutiful manservant and he came back to shredded sheets and a sad and angry kitten, Merlin didn’t have the heart to leave her behind again.

He also didn’t have the coin to try and replace anything else she might attempt to destroy in her efforts to show him how unhappy she was with him leaving her alone.

She was just lonely and acting out, and Merlin could sympathize. He got it, he did.

He knew what it was to be lonely, to have the one person you needed more than anything in the world not be there for you.

Merlin really did not want to do that to Freya, he didn’t want her to feel abandoned and alone.

So when Arthur had left his rooms to go train with his knights, Merlin snuck through the castle halls, Freya hidden inside of his shirt, her tiny head concealed by his neckerchief, until they reached the safety of Arthur’s rooms.

The first time they got there, Freya was beside herself with curiosity and excitement. Her tiny claws _clickclickclicked_ across the stone floor, going from bed to desk to curtains to cupboard and back again, needing to know everything about this new room.

She was so good, just smelling everything in sight, occasionally sticking out her tongue to lick the furniture, but nothing else. Since she had seemed content to entertain herself, Merlin relaxed and started sweeping the floors so he could wash them later.

Merlin kind of hated sweeping, since it meant he had to scrub the stone later that day, and scrubbing the floor was the absolute _worst_ , especially since Arthur was a huge prat who always made a point to track dirt across the clean stone floors.

Arthur was kind of a bastard.

But Freya, she was a sweetheart, even though she had started pacing restlessly by the time Merlin was about halfway through sweeping. Merlin took a quick break to play with her, sneaking a glance out of Arthur’s window to make sure he was still on the training ground before letting Freya gnaw at his fingers and pounce at the buckles on his boots, biting down when she caught the straps. Merlin indulged her, because her biting habit was harmless, and it really wasn’t too difficult to finish sweeping with the tiny kitten hanging from one boot by her teeth.

Everything was cute and adorable, until he left her alone to grab the flat pan he used to sweep the large piles of dirt and dust into. By the time he turned around, Freya had somehow managed to get her entire body soaking wet (most likely by jumping into the bowl set aside for Arthur to rinse his face with after training), rolled in the pile of dirt in the centre of the room, trailed dirt across the room, and was watching him from her perch on Arthur’s bed.

Merlin’s eyes widened in horror when he saw the muddy pawprints across the floor and the bedding.

Especially the bedding, and Merlin made a strangled noise because Freya was looking right at him as she flopped over, rolling her _extremely dirty body all over the blankets and furs_.

A quick glance out of the window showed Arthur handing off his practice sword to a squire, ready to come back to his rooms and clean up.

His rooms which were supposed to be spotless, since Arthur was still pretending that Merlin could be a competent manservant if he just _tried really hard_ , and the worst part was that Merlin _would_ have completed his duties on time. Except Freya.

With a sigh, Merlin hung his head. There was no time, so magic it was.

He couldn’t even bring himself to glare as he picked Freya up before she could attack the broom sweeping along on its own.

She was trouble, but she was cute.

By the way she sneezed, licked at his chin and preened, looking proud of herself, she knew it too.

 

\---

 

Merlin didn’t really know what kittens were _supposed_ to act like, but he was pretty sure that Freya didn’t act like a normal cat.

Normal cats couldn’t possibly be secretly evil, they couldn’t plot out ways to be so adorable that when they caused trouble their owners just sighed, cleaned up whatever they did, and then cooed and pet them. That should be beyond them, right? Merlin thought dragons could maybe do that (not Kilgarrah, though, because he was slightly evil but emphatically _not_ adorable and never has Merlin ever wanted to coo and pet him). Aithusa was cute, and Merlin really wanted to cuddle him, but he really hoped Aithusa wasn’t as diabolical as Freya.

Freya _planned_ and _schemed_ and that couldn’t be normal. Freya was just a cat, a regular animal, and that kind of thinking was beyond animals. Merlin had spent time with Arthur’s dogs, and while they were smart enough to track prey and knew who their owners were and who their enemies were, they were still dumb dogs. Freya was different.

Merlin was starting to really suspect that there was something _off_ about Freya. Sure, she seemed all cute and innocent (and she _was_ ; Merlin thought she was kind of _evil_ , not _malicious_ or anything, and there was a big difference between the two), but cute and innocent creatures didn’t do some of the things that Freya took great joy in.

Like tracking dirt every time Merlin swept Arthur’s rooms, right when he was about to be finally done. Every time. On purpose. Even when Merlin made sure to have the dust pan ready so he wouldn’t have to take his eyes off of her when it came time to collect the final pile of dust. It was like he would blink, and suddenly - dirty paw prints. Everywhere. (Merlin had finally given up on sweeping by hand, which he had to admit was much more fun - magicking the broom and pan while he played with Freya was way better than actually doing chores by hand, and what Gaius didn’t know wouldn’t make Merlin suffer through another lecture complete with disapproving eyebrow motions. The way Freya sneezed when the broom started moving was just a cute bonus.)

And then there was the way she always managed to get Merlin to give up half of his dinner for her, even though he had just watched her eat the food he had laid out for her. It couldn’t be healthy for a kitten to eat that much food, and Merlin was really starting to miss eating meat (since Freya would only accept meat, not vegetables or cheese or bread, and Merlin didn’t know how to say no to her). But she was a growing kitten, almost twice as big as she was when he got her, and maybe she needed the extra food, the way Merlin had when he was just hitting his growth spurt when he was younger.

Worse, though, was the way she tracked his movements with her eyes. She watched him keenly, tail flicking idly as he got ready for bed, as he studied his book of spells, even when he mixed potions for Gaius. It was kind of creepy, because it really started to feel like she was _assessing_ him, or trying to learn his weaknesses so she could use them against him. It made Merlin feel vaguely paranoid, since he was already sure Freya was _not just a cat_ , but he couldn’t explain why he felt that way even to himself.

Still, he loved her fiercely. Even though she was slightly evil and more than likely not actually a cat.

Freya sneezed every time he did magic around her, which was weird, since no other animal had cared or even reacted when he did it around them. She looked personally betrayed when he mended Arthur’s boots after she had spent most of the morning gnawing holes into them. She decided when it was time for them to sleep, mewling loudly until he got into bed and snuffed out the candle, and she decided when it was time for him to get up and feed her.

Merlin was sure that this was no longer practice for Aithusa - there was no way Aithusa could be as demanding as Freya was. She expected every minute of his time, and had taken to clawing at his feet until he spoke to her, constantly, and she would make noises back as if _they were holding a conversation._

Merlin didn’t even want to think about the mess he came back to when Arthur had dragged him out for an afternoon of hunting. His room smelled like cat pee for weeks, and Freya had been angry with him for days.

It just wasn’t normal.

 

\---

 

“I think Freya might be possessed.”

Merlin and Lancelot were walking towards the part of the fields surrounding the castle that contained both lavender (so Lancelot could bring some to Gwen) and feverfew (so Gaius would stop sighing dramatically about how low his supply had run), enjoying their rare afternoon free of duties.

 

Before Merlin had sought out Lancelot, he had checked in with Freya, seeing if she wanted him to stay with her instead. _I’m going to pick herbs with Lancelot, is that okay?_ Merlin could not even explain why he was asking his kitten for permission to go out, but from the way she serenely stared him down before flopping onto the bed, facing away from him as she curled into a ball and settled in for a nap, it was obviously the right move. _I’ll be back before dinner, don’t worry_. Hopefully now she wouldn’t tear apart his room to punish him for leaving her alone. Since he had asked permission. From his cat.

“She’s possessed, okay, that has to be it. She’s not _normal_. She’s running my life, now. She tells me when to eat and sleep and what to do. Lancelot, Freya is _possessed_ and you’re not listening. I had to _ask permission_ to come out today.”

“Is Freya your girlfriend? You didn’t tell me you were courting anyone!” Lancelot was not understanding Merlin at all, because he was smiling and looking pleased for Merlin and _no_.

“Freya is my _cat_ and she is _possessed by an evil spirit_. I have to obey her every whim or she tears my room apart, or worse, _Arthur’s room_. She knocked over a pot of ink on his desk yesterday and left inky paw prints on the paper and _I think she was trying to leave me a message_.” Merlin’s voice was pitched low, as if Freya could hear him talking about her from all the way back in the castle and know that he suspected her. “I kept the paper, I’m pretty sure it’s supposed to be a threat. Or a warning, because she’s so cute and innocent, and she’s evil, not malicious. Maybe she’s warning me about a plot against Arthur! Because if I tilt the paper it kind of looks like it could be a crown, but if I turn it upside down it looks more like an arrow? Could that be it? Lancelot?”

Lancelot had stopped walking, and his face was twisted up as if he couldn’t decide whether to laugh or look concerned. He settled on concerned, and put his hand on Merlin’s shoulder. “I don’t think your cat is possessed, Merlin,” he said earnestly. “But I also don’t know much about cats. And if you think Freya is trying to warn you of a plot against the King, then we shouldn’t dismiss it. Stranger things have happened around you.”

Lancelot’s mouth quivered weirdly at that point, cheeks twitching wildly until he schooled his expression into something approaching grimly worried.

“We should bring this up with the others - Gwen, Leon, Gwaine, Percival and Elyan. If there might be a threat against the King they should know.”

Merlin worried his lower lip with his teeth. “But it’s just a _feeling_. I can’t prove anything.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll talk to them beforehand. We can meet in your chambers tonight after dinner, if that works?”

“I don’t think Freya would like that many people in our room. Can we do it in yours? And we can’t take too long - she gets cranky if we don’t go to bed at a reasonable hour.”

Lancelot coughed. “Not a problem, Merlin. I’ll set it up, don’t worry.”

They walked back to the castle empty-handed, but Merlin was more relaxed knowing his friends were going to help him with the Freya problem.

 

\---

 

Freya wasn’t happy about him going out again, and demanded all of his chicken at dinner as well as a solid hour of playtime. When he got to Lancelot’s rooms, his fingers had only just stopped bleeding from the tiny wounds her teeth and claws had left, and his friends were already waiting for him.

“So Lancelot tells us that your cat is evil,” Gwaine said, looking way too happy for how grave the situation was. Merlin opened his mouth to defend Freya.

“But not malicious! Just possessed. Right, Lancelot?” Gwen spoke quickly, smiling reassuringly at Merlin before she glanced at Lancelot.

“Right. Possessed and potentially warning us against a threat to the King.” Lancelot nodded, looking serious and appropriately concerned.

“Yes! But I don’t know who she’s warning me about. Arthur isn’t supposed to be going on any trips soon, is he? In places where he might be shot with an arrow?” Merlin was rubbing at the small cuts on his hands, glad to finally have people to talk to about this, to take him seriously and strategize with. He just had to work quickly so he could be back in his room before the normal time Freya had decided was bedtime, otherwise she might pee on his bedding again as punishment.

“Don’t worry, the Princess will be fine. I think the bigger problem here is the possession, don’t you agree? We should really do something about that. Cat possession is no light matter.” Gwaine leaned toward Merlin, suddenly grim. “I’ve heard some stories, in my travels, and while they all start out fine, it can get ugly. Quickly.”

“Do… something…?” Merlin looked panicked. Thoughts of having to hurt Freya, of taking her out as if she were an evil sorcerer, flooded his mind.

“What he means,” Leon said with a pointed and disapproving look at Gwaine, “is that if your cat -”

“Freya.”

“- if Freya is possessed, then you just need to depossess it.”

“Her.”

“You need to depossess her.”

“I don’t think depossess is a word,” Elyan said, but Merlin didn’t care. Depossess, or whatever the actual word was, sounded a lot like _magic_. And while Merlin might be able to do it, only Lancelot knew about his magic, so how was he supposed to make Freya not be possessed anymore without raising suspicion?

“Luckily for you, I know all the signs of a possessed cat, _and_ how to depossess them.”

“Still not a word.”

Gwaine ignored Elyan and looked smugly at Merlin, who was now hanging onto his every word.

“Are you sure? I’m pretty sure she’s possessed, but it would be good to know for sure. Does the depossession hurt? I don’t want to hurt her. I mean, possessed or not, she hasn’t done anything _really bad_ , so I don’t think anything too extreme is necessary.”

“One thing at a time, my friend. Let’s see if she’s really possessed. Does she eat more than normal cats?” He smiled disarmingly at Merlin, as if trying to set him at ease. Freya _did_ eat more than he thought a creature her size should, though. He was not at ease at all.

“Um.”

“Does she stare at you, watch you?” 

“Well…”

“What about peeing in your room when she’s mad? Destroying your clothes?” Leon was starting to look as though he had been ordered to witness an execution. Merlin was moments away from freaking out.

“Possessed cats are smarter than other animals. They listen when you speak and respond to you. Sometimes, even though it’s just noises, you can understand what they’re saying. Does Freya do that?”

“I - that is - _maybe_?”

“Well the last thing is - has she ever tasted your blood?”

Merlin quickly moved his hands behind his back, trying to hide the slowly scabbing marks from Freya’s claws and teeth. Which she had licked after she made. His friends all looked something close to sympathetic, even Percival, who was pinching Gwaine hard on the leg. Gwaine immediately smiled happily.

“Don’t worry, depossession is pretty easy. And relatively painless, I promise.” 

They were all smiling reassuringly at him, and Merlin couldn’t help but trust them.

He’d do the ritual and then Freya wouldn’t be possessed anymore and it would be one less thing to worry about.

 

\---

 

Freya was _definitely_ possessed, if her reaction to the ritual was any indication.

Gwaine had said “the coldest water you can find”, and while Merlin could find plenty of cold water, he had the added bonus of magic, so all it took was a quick thought and a flash of his eyes before the water was absolutely frigid. He had stolen the large bowl from Arthur’s room, needing something deep enough that most of Freya’s body could be submerged in it, and then ground all of the rose petals he could find into the bottom, “to purify her soul”, according to Gwaine.

When it came time to put Freya into the freezing rosewater, though, Merlin ran into a problem.

Freya had absolutely no interest in putting so much as a toe into the water, and her claws were raising welts along his arms as she struggled to get away, her angry and scared yowling tearing at his heartstrings.

It kind of made Merlin want to cry, but it was for her own good. A depossessed kitten was a healthy kitten.

Once she was sitting in the water, angry and grumpy and glaring up at Merlin, he tried to apologize as he quickly worked the rosewater into her fur, trying to get it over with as quickly as possible.

She snarled and bit his fingers whenever she could get her mouth on them.

When it was over, he picked her up and wrapped her in warm fabric, rubbing the cloth against her fur to get her dry and warm again, murmuring to her about how much he loved her. She looked up at him with betrayed eyes, but cuddled closer just the same.

Once she was dry and it was time for bed, Freya curled up on his chest the way she did every night, purring loudly as he rubbed behind her ears, the top of her head, her side. She looked happy and content, and not at all evil.

Merlin fell asleep with the scent of roses in the air, secure in the knowledge that Freya wasn’t possessed any longer.

 

\---

 

She was still possessed.

She had to be.

Because Arthur was going to be back any minute and Freya had decided that she didn’t want to go back to Merlin’s room unless Merlin caught her, and also that she wanted to knock over as many things as possible while dodging his hands.

Arthur was about to walk into his rooms and he _didn’t know_ that Merlin had a cat, let alone that Merlin let Freya into the King’s chambers, and Merlin couldn’t see any ending to this that didn’t end with Arthur heaping a staggering amount of chores onto him as punishment.

The fact remained that the depossession clearly didn’t work because Freya was still possessed and full of evil and trouble (there was ink and dirty and shredded fabric _everywhere_ ) and Merlin’s possessed, evil cat was about to be in the same room as the King of Camelot.

Merlin should really, really not let that happen.

He should do something.

The door opened, and Arthur stood in the doorway, frozen in shock. His eyebrows went up and an expression of disgust curled across his face as he took in the disaster his room had become in his absence, with Merlin standing helplessly in the middle of it all, looking overwhelmed and freaked out.

“You know, Merlin, I employ you to _clean_ my rooms, not… whatever you did to cause _this_.” Arthur sneered at him, and Merlin would be offended, except that the room really was a disaster and hiding somewhere was his possessed cat and Merlin needed Arthur to leave immediately so he could catch Freya and smuggle her back to his room where she could destroy _his_ things and leave Arthur’s alone.

“Right. Yes. See, the thing is - Gwaine is looking for you!”

Gwaine’s voice drifted in from the hallway where he was passing by. “No, I’m not!”

“I mean Percival!”

“Nope, not me either!”

Arthur was looking extremely unimpressed. He closed the door, unknowingly locking himself in the room with Merlin and a _possessed cat._

Freya might have been a (slightly evil) sweetheart, but she was still possessed. As Arthur’s secret protector, Merlin should not be letting this happen.

“What did you do?” Arthur’s hand moved idly to the hilt of his sword, and Merlin gulped. He gestured at the mess surrounding him helplessly. “Yes, I see your version of cleaning going on here, but you’ve obviously done something else. Tell me now, and it’ll just be extra chores. Make me find out on my own, and I’ll get the pleasure of ordering you to the stocks for a week.”

The way Arthur smiled at him, wide and happy and with too many teeth, made it obvious that both options worked well for him. Merlin gulped, unsure what to say, until he saw a tiny head peak around the chest by the door. Freya’s whiskers trembled and her tail twitched the way it did right before she pounced.

“I got a cat!” Merlin said, desperate to tell Arthur before Freya made her presence known. A moment later, she dove at Arthur’s boots and immediately sunk her teeth into the leather. “So… since I told you, I don’t have to be put in the stocks, right?” He said hopefully. If he was lucky, he wouldn’t have to mention the whole possession part.

“I guess that depends on why your cat is in my room. Unless you brought it here specifically to make a mess?” Arthur didn’t look that mad, and he hadn’t really done anything to stop Freya from chewing through his boots. When he bent over to pick her up, though, Merlin had to step in.

“Don’t touch her!” When Arthur looked at him as if he was crazy (a sadly common expression on Arthur’s face when he was dealing with Merlin), he pulled up his courage and confessed. “She’s possessed. I thought I had cured her, but obviously,” he gestured to the mess around them, “it didn’t work. I need to talk to Gwaine again, maybe involve Gaius this time, to figure out what I did wrong.”

Arthur sighed, as if dealing with Merlin was the most trying part of his day, and picked Freya up anyway. She cuddled close to his chest, purring happily and nosing at his chin and neck. She was clearly acting innocent and cute (which she was!) to get on his good side.

Merlin loved her, but he didn’t trust her.

“Possessed. Really.” He wasn’t asking for confirmation, but Merlin nodded all the same. “And what made you think this exactly? Because you mentioned Gwaine, and I think I can safely say that whatever he said was a lie.”

Arthur moved to his desk, carefully navigating the piles of dirt and ink stains with Freya held securely in his arms.

“She’s _evil_.” Merlin hissed. With love, because he did love Freya, but he really couldn’t stress enough that she was more than a little evil. She had woken him up that morning by sitting on his face and digging her front claws into his chest. “She’s evil and she licks my blood and makes me give her all of my meat and tracks dirt everywhere _right when I finish sweeping_ and forces me to talk to her and go to bed and wake up and she _watches me all the time_.”

Arthur rubbed his nose against Freya’s happily, not even bothering to look up.

“Well, aren’t you a cute kitty,” Arthur whispered to Freya. She purred louder, staring at Merlin smugly.

“ _Evil_.”

“Merlin, before you got it -”

“Her.”

“- had you ever spent time with a cat? No? Yeah, I didn’t think so.” Arthur rubbed under Freya’s chin, as though he wasn’t in danger of having his fingers bitten. “Merlin, those aren’t signs of possession - gods, I can’t believe you let Gwaine make you think that - those are signs of a cat being a cat.”

Merlin blinked, not understanding.

“All cats are like that. It’s not possession, it’s affection.”

“Oh.”

Merlin felt as if his whole world had been flipped around.

“Now, the cat and I are going to have a nap, and you are going to _quietly_ make this room spotless. If you don’t wake me up with your oafish clumsiness, I might consider your punishment served.”

“No extra chores? Or time in the stocks?” Merlin could barely believe his luck. His cat apparently wasn’t possessed _and_ Arthur was passing up an opportunity to torment him? It seemed unreal.

But Arthur lay down on his bed, Freya curled up contentedly on his chest, and there was nothing more real than how Arthur and Freya both relaxed into sleep in front of him. If the way they both opened one eye grumpily when he dropped the broom a while later made his heart skip a beat with fondness, no one had to know.

Freya might not be possessed, but she was still a little bit evil and a lot of trouble. So was Arthur, though, so it worked.

Merlin loved Freya, trouble or not.

And Arthur, well…

He was a different type of trouble all together.

But that was a story for a different time.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! The art post can be found at Candy's LJ [here](http://candymacaron.livejournal.com/16655), and you should all go show her some love.


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